Questions about making leaf mold

[Growdo Baggins]

I've been taking advantage of the bags full of leaves in everyone's yards and collecting them. This weekend I will make a large pile of leaves that I plan to let sit to break down. I still gotta do some reading about it, but I wanted to start a thread to get your guys input.

Should I leave them in the brown paper bags their in? The way I understand it is its more of a fungaly driven process and maybe doesn't need the oxygen that regular compost needs. So maybe they'd be better left in the bags?

I don't have a way to chop them up bc my mower is down atm. I thought about a bin and my weed whacker but that seems like a lot of work. Unless it's very important they get chopped up I'll just leave them whole. Is it important? I'm not in too big a rush, I'm really just preparing stuff for the future. I've only got 2 5x10 garden plots so far. But I've got a lot of space to expand!

It seems pretty simple, but any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Logan]

Here's a video

 

[Owdboggy]

Never bother shredding ours, there are too many stones from the drive etc mixed up with them. Plastic bags with holes are probably better than paper which will rot away pretty quickly.
All I do is to pile the leaves up in my compost heap, trample them down .soak and forget them.

 

[Meadowlark]

I've been taking advantage of the bags full of leaves in everyone's yards and collecting them. ...

Good for you!! Terrific source of organic materials for soil building. I definitely like to mulch them with a mower before composting but you can certainly do it without.

Here's some reading that offers some very good tips on composting them.

Composting Leaves - How To Compost Leaves

The benefits of leaf compost are numerous. With the correct balance of greens and browns, composted leaves can yield a healthy, rich material for amending the soil. Read this article for more info.

www.gardeningknowhow.com

 

[DirtMechanic]

2 main points are water and air. Wet the ground, add a layer of leaves about 6 inches and wet that, add another and wet that and so on. The work of turning can be eased by the use of cheap thinwall pvc pipe or the black abs perforated drainage pipe under the pile through the middle for oxygen. The process is oxidation oriented and so needs oxygen. A pile needs to be about a cubic yard to get hot, but smaller ones will rot down cold. They are never that sanitary anyway unless you really get the temps up. Even so 140 is pasteurized and only big piles can get close.

A cubic yard of compost will take many times that size in full size leaves to start. It will really shrink a lot. Ambient air temps are your friend, cold is slower unless the pile is big enough to heat up as the various waves of bacteria move through it. As to fungal and this and that, no worries as the leaves are food enough for the bacteria to start since all the plant goodies are in the leaves and the bark. Just make sure you serve something to drink with their meal. You can loosely cover it if its real cold to try and trap heat from leaving up top.

Sometimes I get a small pile that goes cold. Maybe I used some or certain times of year there is not as much material dropping from the trees and plants. I have been known to mix a gallon of ammonia into a 5 gallon bucket of water and boost the pile with it. Farmers ammonia without water is NH3. Mixed with water it becomes NH4OH (Because H2O+NH3). Everything is used. You brought the leaves (C) So there is the start, COH the primary nutrients. Ammonia is a little more than 80% N so it can burn or stop a pile from heating if too strong. The N is used by the biodome as it consumes the leaves into compost. Likewise sugar is also useful as a booster. It has a formula too, but no N. I use it sometimes when I have a lot of green like grass clippings and low carbon.

 

[NigelJ]

I use builders dumpy bags with a sheet of cardboard over the top, stick them behind the fruit cage for a couple of years and then use.
The builders bag (like a woven geo membrane) lets the air and water in and out as does the cardboard.
If possible gather the leaves when wet as they are easier to handle when wet. Dry leaves are a pain to wet, add a few drops of detergent to the watering can to help wetting.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

2 main points are water and air. Wet the ground, add a layer of leaves about 6 inches and wet that, add another and wet that and so on. The work of turning can be eased by the use of cheap thinwall pvc pipe or the black abs perforated drainage pipe under the pile through the middle for oxygen. The process is oxidation oriented and so needs oxygen. A pile needs to be about a cubic yard to get hot, but smaller ones will rot down cold. They are never that sanitary anyway unless you really get the temps up. Even so 140 is pasteurized and only big piles can get close.

A cubic yard of compost will take many times that size in full size leaves to start. It will really shrink a lot. Ambient air temps are your friend, cold is slower unless the pile is big enough to heat up as the various waves of bacteria move through it. As to fungal and this and that, no worries as the leaves are food enough for the bacteria to start since all the plant goodies are in the leaves and the bark. Just make sure you serve something to drink with their meal. You can loosely cover it if its real cold to try and trap heat from leaving up top.

Sometimes I get a small pile that goes cold. Maybe I used some or certain times of year there is not as much material dropping from the trees and plants. I have been known to mix a gallon of ammonia into a 5 gallon bucket of water and boost the pile with it. Farmers ammonia without water is NH3. Mixed with water it becomes NH4OH (Because H2O+NH3). Everything is used. You brought the leaves (C) So there is the start, COH the primary nutrients. Ammonia is a little more than 80% N so it can burn or stop a pile from heating if too strong. The N is used by the biodome as it consumes the leaves into compost. Likewise sugar is also useful as a booster. It has a formula too, but no N. I use it sometimes when I have a lot of green like grass clippings and low carbon.

Dang man that was very informative. I was thinking of 4 rebar stakes about 5ft long driven a foot into the ground wrapped with chicken wire then the leaves in the middle. I have it all on hand and it should let a good amount of air into the pile. I also have that perforated drainage pipe on hand as well. So you're saying to just kinda later it through the leaf pile as I build it up? It'll be a pretty big pile. I've got about 13 of those big brown home depot bags full. I guess I need to get a thermometer for checking the temps in the pile. I thought it was just a cold process. Thanks again for all the info. I'll be referring back to this I bet.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

I use builders dumpy bags with a sheet of cardboard over the top, stick them behind the fruit cage for a couple of years and then use.
The builders bag (like a woven geo membrane) lets the air and water in and out as does the cardboard.
If possible gather the leaves when wet as they are easier to handle when wet. Dry leaves are a pain to wet, add a few drops of detergent to the watering can to help wetting.

Thank you. I thought it was going to suck dealing with all these wet leaves today. It's been raining for 24 hours. But I can see why they would be better. Maybe heavier but they won't be blowing around everywhere.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I use about six or eight feet of chicken wire joined at the ends to make a cylinder into which I dump the leaves, pressing them down, then I just leave them. After about a year they have dropped to about a third to a quarter of the initial amount and I tip it up and use it from the bottom. There will be some on the outside and on top which don't rot, they go into the next lot. As they are in contact with the ground worms get into them, and the wire mesh allows air and rain to get to them. I have enough jobs to do without making it complicated, and plenty of leaves so there are always some ready.

PS I pick them up wet with a wire rake, or dry with the mower. With the mower I usually get a few grass cuttings in there as well, so that damps them.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I was thinking of 4 rebar stakes about 5ft long driven a foot into the ground wrapped with chicken wire then the leaves in the middle.

I used to do this, but found if you press the leaves down hard you don't need the stakes. The leaves push the wire out into a circle and as soon as you have more than a few inches, wet, they hold it down okay.

 

[Chuck]

And if you want them to decompose much faster just pour old stale beer, cokes etc over them. Molasses is the best thing to use but any liquid carbohydrate works.

 

[Owdboggy]

I use the rebar stakes to hold open the builders bags.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

Just wanted to update you guys. With all the great advice I got it went great today. I'll give you a quick run down.

Firstly I have to say material wise everything was found between my house and my neighbors house and there was just enough of every single item to make this work. The fencing I found this summer buried in my grass. It's the reason my mower is down right now. A few of the wires somehow began sticking up and they got caught up in the spinning blades of the mower. The vast majority of it was buried pretty good though, so once I started pulling it up I couldn't stop. By the middle of it I thought I was going to have to get my truck and pull. But it came up and it ended up coming in handy.

I didn't think I needed to explain much, the pictures pretty much capture the process. I watered every bag I dumped in and smashed it down with that shovel. I'm really happy with it. I'll prob do like you guys said and dump some microbe food on there. From what you said sugars are good. I was wondering about something. We use a French press coffee maker and everyday I dump the remaining coffee and grounds into a Tupperware and put the lid on. It takes a few days to fill up and when it does I dump it on the compost. Liquid and all. By that time the liquid has gotten thicker. Bc I seal the Tupperware is that creating an anaerobic condition? Could I dump that on my leaves?

 

[smitty55]

There seems to be a mix up here. The original post was asking about leaf mold and he's getting advice about making compost, they are two different processes. Leaf mold is a long slow cold fungal process which only needs damp leaves to sit for a long time whereas compost involves using leaves, a Nitrogen source and a bacterial source to heat up the pile. I use finished compost on all my new piles which are damp and nice and fluffy and will heat up to 150° within 3 days and then get turned again once the pile has cooled down. So now the OP is talking about adding coffee grounds and aerating the pile in a cage so we are now back to compost again. Both work well, I would use that cage set up for compost and just make piles elsewhere for your leaf mold. Here's my compost piles, I generally have two of them going depending on how many grass clippings I get.

 

[DirtMechanic]

There seems to be a mix up here. The original post was asking about leaf mold and he's getting advice about making compost, they are two different processes. Leaf mold is a long slow cold fungal process which only needs damp leaves to sit for a long time whereas compost involves using leaves, a Nitrogen source and a bacterial source to heat up the pile. I use finished compost on all my new piles which are damp and nice and fluffy and will heat up to 150° within 3 days and then get turned again once the pile has cooled down. So now the OP is talking about adding coffee grounds and aerating the pile in a cage so we are now back to compost again. Both work well, I would use that cage set up for compost and just make piles elsewhere for your leaf mold. Here's my compost piles, I generally have two of them going depending on how many grass clippings I get.View attachment 93639

Technically yeah the decomposers come to a plain wet pile of leaves. Practically I do not see a difference in my piles of leaves except speed. The fastest decomposer I have out there are asian worms. If it is warm they can drop a pile of mulched leaves in a month.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

There seems to be a mix up here. The original post was asking about leaf mold and he's getting advice about making compost, they are two different processes. Leaf mold is a long slow cold fungal process which only needs damp leaves to sit for a long time whereas compost involves using leaves, a Nitrogen source and a bacterial source to heat up the pile. I use finished compost on all my new piles which are damp and nice and fluffy and will heat up to 150° within 3 days and then get turned again once the pile has cooled down. So now the OP is talking about adding coffee grounds and aerating the pile in a cage so we are now back to compost again. Both work well, I would use that cage set up for compost and just make piles elsewhere for your leaf mold. Here's my compost piles, I generally have two of them going depending on how many grass clippings I get.View attachment 93639

I get what you're saying. So if one is a cold fungaly driven process and compost is a hot bacterial one the end product then is different? I mean I would assume the makeup of the soil would be different anyways considering one is just leaves and the other is a whole bunch of nitrogen and carbon sources. And my cold fungally driven leaf pile could be turned into a hot bacterial one by adding greens or nitrogen sources or even sugars to it? But then the end product would be different. I can look this up but do you know what the major differences are between the end product of leaf mold versus compost? Also I'm going to take advantage of the bags of leaves in these neighborhoods and just make some regular piles in my yard like you said. I probably will start adding some food or nitrogen to this leaf pile to get it to break down quicker and then just have a regular leave file like you said. Thanks for the info and advice

 

[DirtMechanic]

So your leaf mould will be a different speed in Georgia than it will be in the UK where the roses may well have made it famous. Leaves have low N, bacteria have little to eat therefore and the universal decomposers in the fungal world are slow to feed. I composted a large pile of compressed sawdust fireplace logs once and it took 3 years. Was not really done even then but I was done with it. A barren source of Carbon will act that way. Leave mould can take 2 years in colder drier places but (Go Dawgs?) it is warm and wet in Georgia. When you are finished you will have whatever elements were in the leaves plus a little biological matter.

But Fungi eat bacteria and also feast on the dead bodies. Another approach is to leave a compost pile alone after a hot run. The next year it will be full of fungal hyphae.

To enhance the protein (amino acid) profile you can go different ways but my point is that you either use and recycle what is available or import manures or expensive things like blood meal to head down the same road that leaf mould is traveling. It is ironic for this conversation that bacteria will begin decomposing dead fungi. Rotting mushrooms have that smell you know?

Increasing the friability of your clay soil for drainage requires a tremendous amount of leaves. We have red clay too. The finer aspects of leaf mould to red clay are like painting an elephant's toenails down here. We have a low OC percentage due to heat and rain in the southeast. It make the clay acid. Compost or adding biochar carbon that will not wash out of the clay or baked clay like the turface sports field products are less work over the years than composting can be alone. To increase the effort or slow the production of reusable organic matter does not help the soils here as much as it might be useful for some unique orchid or aboreal plant designed to exist on leaf fall and rain water up some trunk in the canopy.

Roll Tide!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Some of you are very 'scientific' in your approach, I work on the basis that life is chaotic. For example, with evolution life does not evolve what is suited to the environment, it evolves all the possibilities it can, then the environment 'selects' those which will survive in it.
Working on that basis I leave the pile in contact with the ground, which is home to all sorts of things from fungi and bacteria to worms and earwigs. Then I throw in all sorts of left over bits and pieces like the scrapings from old compost heaps or leaf piles, bits of rotten stick, I even pee in it. Anything and everything all chaotically mixed up, but no refined sugar or anything else I have to pay for, and with no order or system other than giving things a chance.

 

[smitty55]

I get what you're saying. So if one is a cold fungaly driven process and compost is a hot bacterial one the end product then is different? I mean I would assume the makeup of the soil would be different anyways considering one is just leaves and the other is a whole bunch of nitrogen and carbon sources. And my cold fungally driven leaf pile could be turned into a hot bacterial one by adding greens or nitrogen sources or even sugars to it? But then the end product would be different. I can look this up but do you know what the major differences are between the end product of leaf mold versus compost? Also I'm going to take advantage of the bags of leaves in these neighborhoods and just make some regular piles in my yard like you said. I probably will start adding some food or nitrogen to this leaf pile to get it to break down quicker and then just have a regular leave file like you said. Thanks for the info and advice

I would say that in many ways leaf mold and compost are similar in that they are both great soil amendments that add excellent soil structure. However the big difference is that leaf mold only does that, whereas compost also adds nutrition to the soil as well, limiting the need for fertilizers that would be needed if you are only adding leaf mold to your beds.
So if you want to speed up your compost pile add a lot more greens, whether from your kitchen, lawn clippings from you and your neighbours, used coffee ground from your kitchen, friends or coffee shops and although not free, alfalfa pellets that have been soaked add a great nitrogen source along with other micro nutrients and also triacontanol, a naturally occurring growth promoter. Lastly, you need to add a good source of bacteria to speed up the process and build more heat, whether it's finished compost or even a few shovels full of soil.
In the future if you want to get even more into it you can greatly multiply the benefits of compost by using the finished product to make aerated compost tea, which is greatly beneficial to your gardens as a soil drench and to your plants directly as a foliar spray. I generally have a couple of pails going during the summer. I started off using regular aquarium aeraters like in the picture, but I have now upgraded to commercial grade air pumps that put out 45l/min that will support much higher bacterial growth in the tea. Along with that growth also comes the need for more carbs to feed the microbes, so I increase the amount of unsulphured (blackstrap) molasses I use. There is tons of info out there, here's one recipe for a start. https://fromhungertohope.com/what-kind-of-molasses-do-you-use-for-compost-tea/

 

[Growdo Baggins]

I would say that in many ways leaf mold and compost are similar in that they are both great soil amendments that add excellent soil structure. However the big difference is that leaf mold only does that, whereas compost also adds nutrition to the soil as well, limiting the need for fertilizers that would be needed if you are only adding leaf mold to your beds.
So if you want to speed up your compost pile add a lot more greens, whether from your kitchen, lawn clippings from you and your neighbours, used coffee ground from your kitchen, friends or coffee shops and although not free, alfalfa pellets that have been soaked add a great nitrogen source along with other micro nutrients and also triacontanol, a naturally occurring growth promoter. Lastly, you need to add a good source of bacteria to speed up the process and build more heat, whether it's finished compost or even a few shovels full of soil.
In the future if you want to get even more into it you can greatly multiply the benefits of compost by using the finished product to make aerated compost tea, which is greatly beneficial to your gardens as a soil drench and to your plants directly as a foliar spray. I generally have a couple of pails going during the summer. I started off using regular aquarium aeraters like in the picture, but I have now upgraded to commercial grade air pumps that put out 45l/min that will support much higher bacterial growth in the tea. Along with that growth also comes the need for more carbs to feed the microbes, so I increase the amount of unsulphured (blackstrap) molasses I use. There is tons of info out there, here's one recipe for a start. https://fromhungertohope.com/what-kind-of-molasses-do-you-use-for-compost-tea/
View attachment 93652

Very helpful bro thank you